wolves
r the most geographically and ecologically widespread mammals besides
us. they are also more civilized. we've hated them throughout history

*Donald Kroodsma, "The Singing Life of Birds"

only
50 years ago we start LISTENING to birds. they are singing elaborate
creative patterns with rules. we don't yet know what they are saying

*Menno Schilthuizen, "Frogs, Flies, and Dandelions: Speciation -- the evolution of new species"

it's
not just astroturf, humans and hotdogs out there. a 1000 creative
species out your window. how does it happen? here are some fun
examples

*David Arora, "Mushrooms Demystified"

it
was fungi, taught the green plants to live on dry land, and fungi
learned to digest their wooden skeletons. (and everything else) a field
guide, learn them!

*William Morton Wheeler, "The Fungus Growing Ants of North America"

how
one ant sized mother eventually raises up a city of a million children
the size of your living room. in south america, they are in charge.

*Paul Colinvaux, "Why Big Fierce Animals Are Rare",

2 dozen tales of how our world is knit together at the biological and chemical scale

*Lewis Thomas, "The Lives of a Cell",

these little biology essays got me started in highschool on lifelong expeditions of the biological world.

*Paul Colinvaux, "Ecology"

textbook. the beef. all the parts. plants animal mineral. how they weave together.

*Michael Procter, Peter Yeo and Andrew Lack, "The Natural History of Pollination"

the
elaborate mating dances between flowers bees and wasps. yes, wasps and
orchids are having sex with each other! humans aint so weird.

SCIENCE

*Frank Shu, "The Physical Universe: an Introduction to Astronomy"

read
about, do the physics of the grand drama between gravity and the 2nd
law of thermodynamics which creates all the structures of our universe

calculate
how much energy the pulsar looses to glow of the crab nebula, then how
far back in time it began in an explosion. yes one was recorded there
1000 years ago!

*John Janovy, "On Becoming a Biologist"

biology
is a unique science half way between chemistry and geology, @ the human
scale, ready to teach us if we listen to the critters.

*Gerald Holton and Stephen Brush, "Introduction to the Concepts and Theories in Phyiscs"

why
trust science? each theory takes a 100 years of exacting observation,
brutally honest constructive criticism, back and forth before being
woven into a stable edifice

learn
how hard, how long, with what back and forth confusion to wrest basic
facts of science: heat is energy of motion of atoms that make up matter

*Philip Davis and Reuben Hersh, "The Mathematical Experience"

history
and exercizes of the mathematician's art. details. what IS mathematics?
whimsical creation of the human mind or bedrock of reality?

*Guy Alexander, "Silica and Me"

thin.
easy read. how does a scientist make sense of puzzling experiments?
beautiful details. learn some chemistry. geology is silica. read it.

*"Statistics the Easy Way"

statistics
is some subtle complex shit. properties of distributions of multiple
samples of distributions... first book that helped me understand

if
you take a 100 different random samples of a bag of 40 red and 60 blue
marbles, how does the average # of red in all samples relate to 40/100?

how
many random samples of 30 people in a city does it take so that the
total average of the average height of each sample is close to the
average height in the whole city? statistics is subtle complex shit.
this book taught me.

n
different random samples of people in a city, each of size m. what must n
and m be so that the total average of the average height of each sample
is close to the average height in the whole city? statistics is subtle
complex shit. this book taught me.

*Duncan C. Blanchard, "From Raindrops to Volcanoes"

a
delightful romp through observation and experiment. how to collect
microscopic water drops in sea spray? have a baby spider build you a
net...

one scientists
experimental journey to understand rain. how to collect microscopic
water drops in sea spray? have a baby spider build you a net...

*Richard Feynman, "The Meaning of it All",

*Richard Feynman, "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out",

science
as a way of life of exploration, being able to live without certainty,
striving for brutal honesty, is it valuble for human society?

*Richard feynman: six easy pieces

master
physicist introduces you to his craft. whats the most profound
sentence of science knowlege? what is energy? gravity? whats batshit
insane about the quantum world?

*Wilson: 4 colors suffice: how the map problem was solved

math
is weird: 5 color theorm takes only 9 pages to go over 5 cases, you can
do it! but 4 color theorem takes a computer to go over 1400 cases!

*Einstein and Infeld: the evolution of physics

from the masters. first time i understood what soundwaves were, how light works

*rebecca stott: darwin and the barnacle

get
inside the very human world of Charles Darwin as he spends 20 years to
hone his craft before daring to explain his world shattering theory